topic Re: Difference between %ABORT ABEND and Data Step Abort-Statement in SAS Programming

Difference between %ABORT ABEND and Data Step Abort-Statement

FK1 — Wed, 30 Sep 2020 07:26:56 GMT

Hello Folks,

not taking into account that the former is a macro statement while the later is a data step statement, I was wondering whether there is any difference in the sense of behaviour/performance between:

%ABORT ABEND;

and

data _NULL_;
  abort;
run;

I found in the documentation of the two statements

https://documentation.sas.com/?docsetId=mcrolref&docsetTarget=p0f7j2zr6z71nqn1fpefnmulzazf.htm&docsetVersion=9.4&locale=en

and

https://documentation.sas.com/?docsetId=lestmtsref&docsetTarget=p0hp2evpgqvfsfn1u223hh9ubv3g.htm&docsetVersion=9.4&locale=en

that both times it is stated that

"What happens next depends on

the method that you use to submit your SAS statements
the arguments that you use with %ABORT
your operating environment"

Or can they be used interchangeably?

Cheers,

FK1

Re: Difference between %ABORT ABEND and Data Step Abort-Statement

s_lassen — Wed, 30 Sep 2020 11:59:29 GMT

AFAIK, %ABORT and the ABORT statement in a data step do the same.

So this

data _null_;
  abort;
run;

is equivalent to this

%abort;

And this

%abort abend;

does exactly the same as

data _null_;
  abort abend;
run;

Re: Difference between %ABORT ABEND and Data Step Abort-Statement

jimbarbour — Thu, 01 Oct 2020 05:27:23 GMT

I also agree with @s_lassen that they do the same thing.

I've found the most useful form is ABORT CANCEL (or %ABORT CANCEL) which stops the current step and cancels all downstream processing.

I have a little macro called Abort_Pgm that I use when I am in open code but don't want to write a DATA step:

%MACRO Abort_Pgm;
  %ABORT CANCEL;
%MEND Abort_Pgm;

I have found that macro useful.

Jim

Re: Difference between %ABORT ABEND and Data Step Abort-Statement

FK1 — Thu, 01 Oct 2020 17:09:17 GMT

Thx,Jim for your explanation